Our family LOVES April Fool’s Day almost as much as Christmas. Here are a few of the things that we’ve done over the years to give you some ideas to surprise your loved ones.

The first year when my husband and I were married we sent a card to my in-laws that said “guess what we’re pregnant” When they opened it up it said “April Fool’s! Since we were first to get married and they were dying for grandkids they got a big laugh out of that one!

One year my brother, who had been remodeling his house for years, turned off the lights at the breaker box and yelled to my sister-in-law “Quick get the fire extinguisher”. Of course she came running and just about killed him for that one.

My oldest son LOVES April Fool’s Day so he is always pulling something on us and he’s good at it too! Well, Mike decided he would beat him to it a couple of years ago. My son love Furby’s and has a collection of over 150 of them.
Mike came running upstairs screaming “BJ, your furby started talking crazy and then just exploded and started on fire” BJ just burst into tears and started screaming “My Furby’s!” and ran downstairs. Of course the joke was on him when he got down there. That one sort of backfired on us. We didn’t mean to upset him so much. We assumed that since it was April 1 he would have guessed but I guess Mike did a great performance!

One year my sister-in-law was visiting us in Idaho. My brother was talking to her on the phone and he said “oh no, the police are all over here I gotta go”. She waited an hour and didn’t hear anything so she called him and he said “I can’t talk now I will have to tell you about it later”. Of course we still didn’t hear anything by then and we were all thinking the worst. We were worried sick! When she called back a long while later he said “April Fool’s!” We all could have killed him for that one!

Tawra

I went to Dr. Robertson, my nutritional doctor, last week. I have been so tired I can hardly keep standing. I feel like some of the supplements he’s given me have helped a lot of things but I still don’t have any energy.

Everything is fine but I’m just really tired.

He said that I’m low on salt. That if you don’t have salt then you can be very tired. So he told me to salt everything (I already do) and to take 1/2 tsp. sea salt in a glass of water for 3 days. He said in a week or two I should start feeling better.

I thought it might be helping yesterday as I felt great but of course then I over did and now today I’m right back to square one.

Of course Mike and mom keep saying “no wonder your tired. You have 3 kids, are trying to run a house, run a business, start huge gardens and you’re not even unpacked from moving yet and oh yeah, you have a chronic illness. Hello?!”

I admit I do feel like I’m doing too much at the moment and none of it very good but I still think I should have more energy than this.

It will be interesting to see what happens. If this salt thing works I will have to eat my words because I told him I didn’t think it would.

I better run. Just wanted to update everyone!
Tawra

Well, Buster has been on the new dog food just over 3 weeks and……..

WE HAVE A NEW DOG!!!

I can’t believe it! I am so excited. He scratches a couple of times a day now instead of incessantly!

I honestly didn’t think it would work but we found some no soy, no corn, no wheat dog food at the grocery store. Walmart didn’t have it but it’s not too expensive. It will cost us about $10 a month.

I am also using some shampoo that a reader sent me (Thank you Helen!) and that is taking care of any “leftover” skin allergies.

So I think we may have a dog we can live with now! I must admit that there were moments at 2 a.m. listening to scratching that I was wondering!

Thanks for all the advice. For any of you with dog allergies there is hope!

Tawra

Thanks Tracy!

Here’s a great tip for that old golf bag you were going
to toss in the garbage. Why not use it to store all your
gardening tools, like hoes, rakes, brooms etc. Not only
will this keep them neat and tidy but it makes it handy
to carry around with you.

We recieved this email from a reader and I thought I would share mom’s answer.

I have been reading your articles suggesting meals to
prepare for the family. We can’t afford to make these
kind of meals. We are a family of 11 at home now and
my husband has irregular income. We don’t usually
have any more than $100-150 a week, at best, for
groceries, and that includes all the non-edibles like
diapers for two, wipes, detergents, etc., which takes
up almost half the money. Many weeks we don’t even
have that much. We live on peanut butter sandwiches
for lunch everyday and beans at least five or six
times a week for supper. It is difficult to buy
fruit, vegies, and meat for eleven people. My family
hates eating like this. One son doesn’t eat supper
but once or twice a week rather than eat beans. Can
you suggest meals for families like mine that don’t
have the money to prepare the kind of meals that
you’ve been suggesting? We seldom eat desserts
because we can’t afford those either. My kids don’t
even drink milk much because it would cost too much
just to buy that for them.

Please don’t suggest I buy ebooks because I don’t have
the money for those either. Thank you.

Jill’s Answer:
Here are a few things that I did to help you get started. First learn as much as you can on the exact amount of nutrients and amounts of things like Vitamin C, protein, green veggies etc. that your family needs a day and only buy that amount. That means if they get an orange for lunch they probably have their vitamin C for the day so they don’t need any juice just water.

If they have milk in their cereal for breakfast and in a slice of cheese for lunch they have their dairy for the day. Learn how much you need to eat and fix no more then that. I then used less expensive filler foods like potatoes, bread or popcorn for everyone to eat if they were still hungry.

We drank nothing but water. No juice, milk, coffee, tea etc. For desserts I would make things like popcorn, cookies that didn’t take expensive ingredients or cakes from mixes that I had gotten on sale (I buy Valentines cake mixes after Valentines for .49 etc.).

I would stretch my food as much as possible. I would boil the bones of a chicken even if there looked like there was no meat on them and make soup. Nothing went to waste. It took a lot of work on my part but I soon enjoyed the challenge of making attractive good tasting meals for almost nothing. I even became a psychiatrist and when I had less then the best to serve I would put on a nice tablecloth, some candles and set the table beautifully. Everything looks good in candle light. They ate it up. literally.

It will take some work and don’t give in to the idea that you have to eat only beans and oatmeal. If you are really serious about getting help then spend sometime reading reading our web site. We don’t just have “too expensive meals” but lots of ideas like I mentioned above and most of what is in our books is on the website.

It is full of free tips but you need to really read it through. I almost get the feeling that you have given up and that you feel no one is or has been in as bad of a situation as you so you have given up trying. Also are there any teens in your family? Mine were working and contributing to the household funds by the time they were 14 so let them help. There is always a way it just may mean thinking of things in a different light. It can be done. Hope this helps, Jill

Visit us for money saving tips and free recipes!
www.LivingOnADime.com

Today’s Tips:

Spring is here and for many of us that means spring cleaning! Today’s tips are meant to help you make cleaning easier.

If you have old linens that have yellowed, turned brown or are dingy, soak them in buttermilk or sour milk to brighten them and remove some of the stains. This works especially well for items like quilts or old doilies that you don’t want to use anything harsh on.

Soak colored cottons overnight in salt water to reduce fading of the colors.

If you get a build up of spray starch or fusible web on the sole plate of your iron, just run it over a dryer sheet to clean it off.

Keep a toothbrush by your kitchen sink to clean things like graters, choppers, mixer beaters and openers. You will be surprised how often you grab it to use on hard to clean places.

Clean your coffee pot once in a while. Pour 1/2 to 1 cup of vinegar into it and run it through as if you were making coffee. Repeat a couple of times using the same vinegar.

Pour 1/4 cup baking soda down your drain. Then pour the used vinegar from the coffee maker down the drain. Let it sit for a minute or so.

Next, pour 1-2 pots of water through the coffee maker to wash out the vinegar. When each pot of rinse water from the coffee maker is done, pour it into the drain. You now have a clean coffee pot and a clean drain.

Take care of all your small appliances. It really does help them last longer.

There is a little door on the bottom of your toaster that catches the crumbs. Open and clean out the crumbs once in a while. (UNPLUG THE TOASTER FIRST!)

Wipe down your hand mixer after each use.

Run your iron over a dryer sheet to remove anything gummy, including fusible web

Blow the dirt off of your fans, computers, or air purifiers. (You can buy cans of air for use with computers at office supply stores. These can be used to blow dirt off of other hard to clean items. I used to use an air compressor to blow the dirt off of house fans and grates.)

Today’s Menu:

Sonja’s Chicken*
Mashed Potatoes
Fried Okra
Pear Fruit Compote*
Seven Layer Cookies*

Today’s Recipes:

I have tasted so many chicken recipes that use cream of chicken soup. This recipe tastes like homemade cream of chicken soup and there is nothing else like it. This is probably the best chicken I have ever eaten. It is like manna from heaven! The flavor is so much richer than any similar recipe I have tasted.

*Sonja’s Chicken

1 chicken, cut into pieces
2 cups water
1 tsp. chicken bouillon
Bay leaf
1 tsp. onion salt
1/2 -3/4 cup mushrooms
1/4 tsp. thyme
3/4 cup heavy cream

Place chicken in a plastic bag with some flour and shake to coat chicken in flour. Place in a greased 9×13 pan. Mix water, bouillon, bay leaf, onion salt and mushrooms and pour over chicken. Cover and bake for 2 hours at 350°. In the last 15 minutes, add the thyme and heavy cream and continue baking. Leave foil off for that last 15 minutes.

*Seven Layer Cookies

1 stick (1/2 cup) margarine
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1-2 cups flake coconut
1 pkg. (6 oz.) chocolate chips
1 pkg. (6 oz.) butterscotch chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup nuts, chopped

Melt margarine in a 9×13 pan. Add the rest of the ingredients in layers. Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes. Cut into bars when cool.

*Pear Fruit Compote

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. cornstarch
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup concentrated orange juice
2 Tbsp. margarine
1 can (20 oz.) pineapple chunks, drained
1 can (15 1/4 oz.) pear halves, drained
1 can (15 oz.) Mandarin oranges, drained

Topping:

1 (3 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. concentrated orange juice

In a large sauce pan, combine the first 5 ingredients in order. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes until thickened. Add fruit, turn down heat and just heat through. In a small bowl, beat topping ingredients until smooth. Serve fruit with a dollop of topping.

Newsletter 3-25

Dear Readers,

I hope you had a happy Easter! If you know of anyone who will be having a baby soon, after Easter sales make great baby gifts. All the pastel baskets and boxes look great in a baby’s room and are wonderful for storage!

Enjoy mom’s article on cooking at home!

Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com

Home Cooking — Mmmm Good!
(easy ways to make fixing meals at home doable)

OK — There’s no way around it. Just accept the fact that tomorrow your family will eat three meals — again. People have been doing it since Adam and Eve started munching fruit in the garden of Eden. Burying your head in the sand and not thinking about it will not make it go away.

I know that even the thought of making a meal at home strikes terror in some of your hearts and the only reason the rest of you aren’t feeling terror is because you are probably so tired you can’t feel terror or any other emotion. But with going out to eat being one of the top 3 causes of credit card debt and child obesity and diabetes on the rise, I think we need to start reconsidering cooking at home.

Here are a few suggestions to help you get started:

One of the biggest reasons people hate cooking at home is their kitchen is such a disaster area. Take the time to clean and organize that one room. If you need to get some help, then do, even if that help means hiring someone to help you get it organized. In the long run, it will pay for itself (probably after the first one or two weeks cooking at home).

Once your kitchen is clean and organized, keep it that way. When your kitchen is clean it should only take you about 15-20 minutes to clean up after each meal. For the $40 or more you would have paid plus all of the time you would have spent going out to eat, keeping it clean and organized is time well spent.

The evening or day before you go shopping for groceries, clean out the fridge and check your pantry. Remember that once it has been organized, if you do minor cleaning and organizing weekly, it won’t take much time. Plan a a leftover night that evening, too. This will help reveal what you have too much or too little of, what you need to use or buy and empty the fridge so you have room for the new groceries.

Make a week’s worth of menus. Sit down with grocery ads, your recipe file and your favorite cookbook (hopefully that is Dining On A Dime ;-). This is a good time to throw in one or two of those new recipes from magazines that you have wanted to try. If you get stumped or you need help to get you started, flip through your cookbooks or recipe files. You will be surprised how much this will help motivate you.

Planning Menus

In a notebook, write a weeks worth of menus. You only have to do this for 3 weeks, because at the end of that time you will have 21 menus. You now have almost months worth of menus (since most people will go out at least once a week to eat and have a leftover night once a week this helps to fill in the days for the rest of the month). You can then just use these same menus over and over.

Don’t restrict yourself by saying that you have to have fried chicken on Monday, roast on Tuesday, etc. Instead, list the menus in categories like elaborate (for the days you have more time) and quick (for those “nothing has gone right today, so what can I fix when I am blurry eyed and have only 5 minutes” days). I usually make about 3-4 menus in each category.

Be flexible. If you get to the grocery store and they have some thing unbelievable on sale then adapt your menus accordingly.

Plan what you are going to have for dinner the night before or first thing in the morning.

Make sure you have all the ingredients on hand and take out anything that needs to be defrosted.

Prepare as much as you can the night before or first thing in the morning. Clean carrot sticks and veggies and make Jello, pudding or desserts. Fry hamburger for a recipe or even make a whole casserole so all you have to do is pop it into the oven.

It is much easier and less stressful to do as much as possible ahead of time than to try and do it at 5 o’clock — the busiest time of day (when everyone is tired, fussy and needs your attention). Besides, it is easier to concentrate on fixing 2 or 3 items ahead of time instead of trying to take care of 5 or 6 things all at the last minute.

Give yourself a break. You will be saving a great deal by eating at home, so use some convenience foods like bagged lettuce or sliced and buttered French bread. Line your pans with aluminum foil and don’t feel guilty about using disposable pans or paper plates. We are funny creatures. We don’t feel guilty spending money to go out to eat (where people throw away the trash for you), but feel awful about buying much less expensive disposable pans and paper plates. Go figure.

Don’t forget the meal is not finished until the kitchen is clean and left ready for the next meal.

I have to admit that beef jerky is one the foods I love the most! I could eat it for every meal!

My cousin-in-law (Hi Chris!) makes some of the best I’ve ever tasted, although this last batch (that I had to wrestle from mom to get a bite) was hot!

Of course, I still ate two pieces even though my mouth was burning! LOL Man it was good stuff!

If you like things on the milder side here’s the recipe I used to use before Chris started sending it to us! I admit that the smoker does add some flavor but if you don’t have one like us then this will get you buy until you can get the next “fix”.
Enjoy! Tawra

Beef Jerky

1 lb. flank or round steak ¼ tsp. pepper
1 tsp. seasoned salt 1/3 cup soy sauce
½ tsp. garlic powder 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. onion powder 2 Tbsp. liquid smoke

Pat steak dry with paper towel. Slice thinly across grain. In a bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients. Place meat in bowl, making sure each slice is coated with marinade. Place in refrigerator overnight. Drain meat on paper towels, blotting well. Place meat on oven rack and cook at 140 degrees for 3 hours, or in a food dehydrator for 8 hours. Store in a jar in the refrigerator.

Now that the weather is nice I’ve been trying to take a walk everyday. We live “out in the country” in a neighborhood where the houses are on acre lots. About half of the houses aren’t in the best shape.

As I was walking along I started noticing trash all over the place. There is even one place where someone had decided to just dump two bags of trash full of diapers and all kinds of other stuff.
The animals of course had gotten into it and tore it to shreds. It’s a mess.

After a couple of weeks of walking it really started getting on my nerves so I decided to start picking it up as I went along. I took two grocery sacks and just filled them as I went. The kids even went with me a couple of days and just loved it! Seems strange but it gave them a great sense of pride to be able to take care of our neighborhood.

I got to thinking how people need to stop “acting poor”. How do you expect God to bless you with things if you don’t even take care of simple things like picking up your own trash or keeping your cleaned out and vacuumed.

There are a lot of things that can be done like this but people just don’t do it. I’ve noticed that most of the time these types of people have the “poor me, I’m so poor that I just can’t get head” attitude.

So my thought for the day is “stop acting poor”. Take care of the things you do have and stop whining about what you don’t have! We live in America where even the “poorest” people are rich compared to 2/3 of the world!

Tawra

Hi Tawra,

Thought of you this morning when my little guy created his own fun from an item in his Easter basket.

In his Easter basket, my son received a couple miniature race cars ( of course on clearance from Christmas Holidays).

Instead of letting me recycle the cardboard tube from the newly exchanged paper towel roll in the kitchen, he stopped me and said, “Hey Mom…can I use that?”

He propped it up on a slant against the couch and put his car in the tube to watch it race out of the bottom of the cardboard tube and speed across the floor! He did this over and over testing different angles of slants to see which made the car race the fastest.

I heard over and over, “Woo Hoo!” Children are so curious, and their minds so inviting to excitement, that the simple experiments with the world around them bring delight.

I can’t wait to finish a roll of Gift wrap to give him a 3 ft. long cardboard tube. Wonder how fast marbles can race down the tube? He’s got me interested.

Hope all is well with you and your family.

I started my garden seeds this week when I saw the blog. Started with lettuce and parsley. I am using newspaper plastic bags to give my egg cartons a green house environment over the seeds to keep the moisture adequate. First year trying lettuce. Hoping for the best.

And to my delight, I found that my flower annuals from last year seeded themselves and are growing back again. I love it! I already have multiple petunias flowering with no effort at all. Just because a flower is an “ANNUAL” does not mean that it needs to be replanted every year. I have found that most times, nature will nuture itself.

God Bless, Robin in CA